Noor only smiled. “And ye always did mistake boldness for strength.Justbecause they arenae born of me husband, doesnae mean they didnae lay with him beforehand.”
“Is yer thirst for vengeance so insatiable that ye havenae forgiven yer husband’s sins… even in his death?”
“I will find absolution with God, and nae ye or anyone else.”
Iona looked at her properly then.
This was the woman who had haunted every mile of her running. The woman she had once thought impossible to fight because rank itself seemed a kind of armor no decent person could pierce. The woman who had taught her, with every soft-spoken threat, how easily cruelty could survive in silk and jewels and a title.
But this room was not MacFarlane Castle. Iona was not eighteen and cornered and praying escape might buy enough years to keep a child alive. Noor still had her poise. Her power. Her men. Yet she no longer held the whole world by the throat the way she once had in Iona’s mind.
Nae tonight.
Iona slipped the clasp of her cloak loose and let the garment fall back from her shoulders. It was a small gesture, but deliberate. A refusal to look as though she had come here already beaten.
Noor noticed. Of course she did.
“What is this?” the older woman asked lightly. “Defiance?”
“Ye should ken this better than anyone, Noor. This is recognition,” Iona answered.
Noor’s eyes narrowed by a fraction.
Iona stood taller. She could feel her own heartbeat now, hard and steady, but it no longer made her feel weak. It made her feel alive. Dangerous in ways she had never before allowed herself to be.
“I am nae the same helpless lass ye once kent,” she said, and the room went very still.
Even the men behind the hostages seemed to register it. Not the words alone, but the way she said them. The absence of trembling. The absence of pleading.
Noor’s smile faded. Not completely, but enough. Caution flashed across her features as her eyes darted past Iona’s shoulders justbriefly. Doubt and the sudden instinct to fight or flee also passed over her. Iona could see it. The wild thoughts are racing through Noor’s mind even now.
Good.Iona thought defiantly.This shouldnae take long.
31
Frederick had never known waiting to feel like this.
He had stood through battles. Through negotiations that turned on a pause too long or a breath too short. Through nights when he had known men would ride at dawn, and blood would follow before noon. None of it had felt like this. None of it had hollowed him out from the inside while leaving every nerve sharpened to the point of pain.
They had followed Iona exactly as planned. At a distance. Silent. Archer, in the lead once they reached the eastern grounds, because he knew the approach to the old hunting lodge better than any of them. Lennox at Frederick’s left. Four men behind. Enough to move swiftly if needed. Not enough to be seen too soon.
It had felt wrong from the first step.
Every time Iona’s dark shape had slipped ahead through the mist, every time she had rounded a turn and vanished from sight for the span of a breath, something in him had tightened further. He had told himself it was strategy. Timing. That if they moved too early, Noor would bury herself deeper and drag the women with her. That if they held steady, they would end it all at once.
The words had done nothing.
When they reached the rise above the lodge, Archer raised one hand, and they all stopped. Light spilled faintly through the warped shutters. One lantern burned at the door. Another glowed through a crack in the side wall.
Archer bent low, listening.
Then came Noor’s voice, indistinct through timber and distance. Then Iona’s, clearer, steadier than Frederick had expected and stronger than it had any right to be after all she had carried into this place.
I am not the same helpless lass ye once knew.Frederick’s heart slammed once, hard enough to make him dizzy.
Archer turned his head slightly. “Now,” he said.
The men moved as one.